


These Are Days

by thebitchesofdathomir



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben gets scissorkicked in emotions, Ben takes a trip to Jakku, F/M, Flashbacks, He feels the feels, One Shot, Rey had a rough childhood, all because Rey had to deal with her fair share of bullshit, and Rey only, and he wants one from Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebitchesofdathomir/pseuds/thebitchesofdathomir
Summary: Having abandoned the First Order, Ben Solo looks for belonging in the galaxy. He starts in the Jakku deserts looking for the shelter that housed a lonely scavenger for so many years.  Among the scavenged remains of the AT-AT, he finds a wall marked with thousands of tallies.One-Shot





	These Are Days

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Wars, but I do have feels and this is how I hurt them. I wrote this a few months ago and didn't put too much thought into it...just tears.

B E N

He stomps through the Jakku desert, only intending to follow the slight tug of an invisible thread attached to his ribcage.  He’s been doing this for hours. Slightly altering his path until the pull felt at its strongest. Like a compass guiding him to true north.  

Unfortunately, also like a compass, it didn’t measure the distance to his destination. More or less just an aroma of what he wanted and the general direction of where to find it.  

He knew he should have kept his ship, save him the trouble of walking this far. But he thought he was close when he exited his craft. Just how he feels closer with every step he takes.  He hopes it’s real and not the heat feeding into his desires. He catches himself a moment later and slows his pace.

_ Hope. _

He wonders when he started to feel it. It must have been there before.  If he hadn’t felt it before he wouldn’t be here at all. He realizes that without hope, he would’ve stopped walking a while ago.  He wouldn’t even have come to this godforsaken planet. He would’ve been killed by now, undoubtedly. He’s amazed he’s just recognizing this now. Amazed at how far he had made it with that flicker of hope alone.  The first spark of hope he’s allowed himself to admit to in years.

If that word crossed his mind a few months ago, he would have been ashamed. He didn’t take chances with empty words like that, especially not with Snoke invading his mind constantly.  He had come to resent the concept for most of his life. He had only felt disappointed when he let hope overcome him. 

_ Disappointment. _

He felt it first from his parents, then his uncle, then his tormentor...and then from her. Disappointment seemed to be the only constant in his life. He had disappointed them and they had disappointed him.  It seemed to be a lost cause. It wasn’t worth building something up only to fall so far.

And yet, for what may be the most hopeless situation he has ever encountered, he feels hope seep through his mind and radiate like the most comforting of glows (not unlike the glow that he would feel from Rey).  Disappointment doesn’t seem to be an option now. For the first time in his life, he knows who he is, or at least who he wants to be. He doesn’t feel split down the middle anymore. His mind doesn’t feel devoured by his conflicted feelings.  He doesn’t hate half of himself for not matching the other half. He scoffs and remembers he hates his whole self for other reasons. But he’s accustomed to self-hatred. It’s familiar enough. It’s just the first time he wants to do something about it.  

He strides faster, eager to find what lies at the end of the invisible thread tugging on his heart.  He knows who he wants to be. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to live. He wants to find  _ her _ . He wants to the person she believes he can be.  He wants to be Ben Solo. 

  
  
  


Finally, on the horizon, he sees something gray accompanied by a glare that was most likely mechanical.  A wonderful sight after hours of endless dunes and soft sand. The thread tied to his chest tugs like never before and he knows he’s there. As he approaches closer to the object, he realizes it’s an old AT-AT on its side.  Weathered and eroded but still recognizable as one of the old Imperial walkers. He stares at it for a moment, dwelling on the fact that this was her home for most of her life. 

He makes his way inside.  He can hear his heart pounding in his ears.  He reminds himself that she isn’t there. She couldn’t be, but signs of her have remained in the very walls of the structure and he chases them down.  The place looks like it had been scavenged clean in her absence. Whatever valuables she had accumulated here seemed to be broken or stolen. He circles around the main area for a few minutes, trying to find anything worth salvaging.  His foot kicks at a loose but fairly large screw and it is propelled across the floor and knocked into a tin cup. It rolls into view and something seems to be inside it. He narrows his eyes, attempting to see what it was before he crouches down. It’s a sad looking flower, fairly wilted, but preserved and still has the essence of the vibrant colors it might have had once.  He cradles it in his large hands, worried it might turn to dust if he isn’t careful. He wants this. If he never sees Rey again, this is what he wants to remember her by. 

Something calls to him and he turns. He isn’t sure how to describe it but it feels desperate and almost chilling. He can’t name what it is, but it’s familiar.  He searches for a moment, relying on the pull in his chest to reveal a destination. He stills however when he notices one of the walls has strange scratches, small in length and parallel to each other across the entire surface.  He studies them closer and he feels his heart stop. 

_ These are days _ .  Every one of these marks is another day that nobody came for her.  Every one of these marks is another day she felt alone. He falls to his knees and looks at the endless number of marks that she had recorded day after day.  It’s painful to look at. He can’t imagine having to live through one of these days let alone thousands. He had told her to kill the past, and with it now literally right in front of him, he can’t help but wonder how she kept hope for so long.  She kept going every day, trying to convince herself she could be worthy enough for her family to come back for her. He feels his heart sink further and further before looking up at the marks again. 

He places the flower on the ground next to him before he slowly removes a black glove from his hand.  The reach is undoubtedly familiar. The air stills in the walker while he recalls  _ that _ night. 

 

She had appeared in front of him. Her clothes were wet, her hair was mostly down and her eyes were filled with tears. She was speaking to him in a way she never had.  She was sharing a part of herself she had never shared before and let him listen. She let him in. She told him she had never felt so alone. 

He had found that significant. After years abandoned on a desert planet, it was only  _ then _ that she felt the depths of her loneliness surface.  As if she had started to admit to herself the truth. Like she started to understand that those years on Jakku she spent waiting and hopeful were for nothing.  

He couldn’t let her feel like that. He didn’t want her to feel left behind anymore. He told her she wasn’t alone.  He needed her to know that for the first time, she truly wasn’t alone. She told him the same and said it wasn’t too late. He remembers hearing it faintly through his pounding ears.  Then she reached for him and he reached for her. It was the first time in so long that he felt alive. He felt something ignite from the lightest of touches from her fingertips. He knew it meant something profound, he just hadn't recognized it as hope.  

 

And now he’s kneeling on the ground of the home she built for herself as a child and reaching for this wall that might bring him closer to her.  Even if it’s her past, it’s a part of her and that’s all he needs. His hand hovers for a moment and he debates getting up and storming out forever.  Every doubt invades his mind.

_ She doesn’t want you. She deserves happiness you can’t give her. You only disappoint, don’t disappoint her again. _

He shakes with fear. Worried he can’t change. That he’s doomed to be miserable in his ways for the rest of his life.   _ That’s probably what I deserve _ , he says to himself.  But he sees a blurred version of who he could become. He wants to be that person. For her, for his mother, for his father, and for himself.  He pushes past the doubts and places his palm on the wall.

 

His breath catches when he sees her overtake his mind.  She looks like she’s ten years old when she finds the walker and makes it hers.  She places a doll that looks like a resistance pilot into a sitting position while she talks to it, “And we can put a table here and our bed over there.  And maybe…” she’s so excited. This is probably the first thing that is all hers. The closest thing to a home she ever knew. And although that’s devastating to imagine, she looks so adorable.  

_ Adorable. _

There’s another word he doesn’t recall being in his vocabulary. 

She starts scratching little marks on the wall and trying to account for the days that have already passed.  He’s awestruck at the certainty she has when she’s so small, so innocent. As if she isn’t terrified that she’s all alone. She seems so hopeful like things were really going to change. 

 

That memory fades into another and he sees her again, but she’s slightly older.  A little taller. She looks around twelve but Ben can’t be sure. She’s trailing in the scrap that she gathered and constructing what looks like a staff, just a tad shorter than the one she carries now.  She puts it together with ease, with a grace a desert scavenger probably shouldn’t have, especially as young as she is. When it’s finished, she spars with it in the main room for a while before she remembers to add a mark on the wall for that day.

 

The next vision starts abruptly and she looks older again. Somewhere around fourteen or so.  She’s wearing darker colors, similar to the fabrics she wore on the Supremacy. Her eyes are wide and she’s holding some lighter fabric in her lap.  She glances down at the clothes that he now notices are slightly bloody.  _ Oh… _

Suddenly, someone emerges into the walker. Rey seems startled, probably not used to visitors.  It’s an older woman, someone Rey must know from the outpost. She looks wrinkled and weathered even though she’s probably only in her early forties.  “E’di? What are you doing here?” Rey asks, trying to hide the tremble in her voice.

“I brought you a quarter portion. Heard Plutt left you empty-handed today,” she offers.

Rey seems suspicious.  She wasn’t eager to accept handouts and fall into a debt, even something as meager as a quarter portion, “No, thanks,” she replies, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” Ben thinks she says this to herself too. She was used to being the only one to comfort herself and now isn’t any different. 

“I’m giving it to you anyway. Thought you might need something after today...” E’di trails off before motioning to the bundle of clothes still in Rey’s grip, “I know it’s scary to deal with on your own, at least the first time.  But after this, if you track it right, it won’t be so bad. Especially if you have some...supplies.”

“I know...It’s just...I guess I didn’t realize how much older I was. Forgot I wasn’t really a kid anymore,” Rey answers. She glances at the wall with sad eyes.  As if she’s just realizing what they mean and how she’s getting older with each one. 

E’di gives her a sad look, “If you grow up in a place like this... you were never a kid…” she says.  The older woman looks around the AT-AT that Rey had made into a home or as much of a home as she could.  She shook her head and nodded, “This planet is just one big graveyard, Rey. Hardly a place for children.”

“But it’s different for me.  This is just temporary...Just until-”, Rey tries to explain but can’t seem to find the words. The argument she must have made so many times before died in her throat, unable to surface this time.

E’di notices and tries again, “Everything is temporary. Even your life, Rey.  You shouldn’t have to spend it here,” E’di says with her eyes glued to the floor. Not even glancing in Rey’s direction.  Rey doesn’t answer but E’di has nothing left to say. She turns to nod at Rey in farewell before she embarks out of the AT-AT and ventures back out into the sands. Rey stands stiff and releasing a breath she must have been holding for some time.  She looks like she’d been slapped in the face. 

She tried so hard to believe it hadn’t been that long. That she was still just a kid making the best of a bad situation. That whoever left her here had loved her. And whoever they were, they’d be back for her any day now.  But the young girl who looked so certain earlier now seems unsure. She adds another mark on the wall looking a little more hollow than she did before. 

 

The next memory he sees shows her slightly older than the previous. She’s got a black eye, bloody nose and clutching her middle as if her arm was the only thing holding her ribcage together. Her lip is trembling and there are tears threatening to fall on her cheeks as she scratches the mark for that day.  As she engraves it, he realizes the mark she leaves is much deeper, angrier than the other ones. The sound of metal grinding on metal emits a painful screech. Only when she sets down the fine point tool do the tears spill over onto her dirt crusted face. She stares at the mark for a moment before her gaze shifts to the many she’s made before it. She lets out strangled sob before she screams and crumbles onto the floor, “Come back...please.”

Ben feels gutted. He has no time to gather himself though as he’s rushed into another snippet of her life.  She doesn’t look that much different than she does now. She floats around the cramped space with practiced ease. She reaches into the pouch she keeps at her hip and pulls out a flower, the same one that sits beside him.  She situates it in a tin cup and lightly caresses the petals. She smirks and Ben is relieved to see a memory that wasn’t traumatizing. She comes over to the wall and leaves the day’s mark with her teeth chewing on her bottom lip.  

She doesn’t really acknowledge the marks that day, just makes the single tally and carries on.  She goes about making dinner and attending to her chores. This must be what the “every day” looked like.  This must be the filler between small triumphs and tragedies she existed in as a young girl who was left for slavery and survival on the unforgiving planet of Jakku. 

 

He pulls his hand away from the marks and feels the pulse of memories fade away from the surface.  The whole structure then seemed to dim, taking any reminders of Rey away from him. He wasn’t sure he could handle more visions anyway, but he felt a despair that even past versions of her were now out of his reach.  He feels his eyes fill with tears and he makes no attempt to shield them.

In the still of the AT-AT, he remained on his knees staring down at the wilted flower in his grasp. It was so quiet now, but again, strangely familiar.  What he thought was lonely a moment ago now feels safe and calm, like she never left. But he feels something brush against his mind and suddenly he remembers where he’d felt that calm before. One he hadn’t felt in months. One that didn’t come alone.

“Ben?” 


End file.
